Why am I suddenly getting friend requests from all these amazing looking men?

[Sleephound]

On FB.

Obviously they're not real profiles. Very attractive photos with very little activity and few friends, it's an obvious scam, but why has my profile suddenly started attracting them?

Scams working by reaching out to lots of people, all they need is a few to engage. It's a numbers game.

They probably have some AI set up to send a large number of requests at random, or to a certain demographic, e.g., women ages 35-60 etc. It's not specifically targeting you and all the fake accounts could be from one source.

IMO Facebook is now just lots of bots.

I don’t really use it any more, nor do most of my contacts by the look of my feed, but all the posts on it are nonsense content-farming, AI-generated images with controversial comments etc - all posted as sponsored content ie not from accounts I follow.

Im struggling to see how or why anyone uses it given that’s what it seems to be now.

I've just read 'Keanu Reeves is not in love with you' which was a really interesting read about scams

I use it mostly to keep up with what's on offer in my local community and some special interest groups I'm involved in.

I'm suddenly getting lots of friend requests or 'suggestions' too - some are people I know and don't want to be friends with 🙄and some are just random, completely unconnected accounts.

They've presumably changed something in the algorithm. Tbh I only use Facebook now for a couple of groups, none of my friends post much (and neither do I) and when I scroll it's all AI-generated stuff and groups I'm not interested in. Goodness knows what they've done but it's definitely on its way out.

You have commented or liked someone you are following a celebrity or personality . Then you get "Mike from the marines," messaging you !

I had an instagram message suggesting I'd be perfect to model jewellery for some guy.

Believe me - I'd be the last person you'd pick to model jewellery currently.

(Missing a fairly front tooth and peri acne 😂)

Oh yes, I've just had that one @itsgettingweird! Although I think it was on instagram rather than FB (both owned by Meta, of course)

I don't think so. I keep my FB profile very close. My friends are only people I know and like IRL, I'm a member of a few groups, also run by real people I know and I don't comment on any of the other stuff that pops up on my feed.

I got two friend requests in quick succession from Elon Musk profiles, asking if I was his biggest fan. Super needy.

Oh shit. One of the groups, I've only re entry joined, is a widows support group. Jesus, very naive of me, but also WTF!

I also get a lot of these requests - since joining a widows site!
Mine tend to be American doctors (they are in scrubs in their pics!) and would make George Clooney look ugly!
If I look at their profile they tend to have v v few friends and these would be middle aged women!
It's sad that at someone's most vulnerable, a scam opportunity has come up

When I used to use Skype (pre-Zoom/Teams days) I used to get a lot of these - always men claiming to be in the American forces - often using the same picture!

I have had a few too ,mainly American ,military men I just delete and block I assume if I accepted they would try and scam me.

I guess they are using my photo?

It keeps happening, bigly time.

i get them. always a certain age and live in the USA.
sad that they are not drawn to me for my beauty lol

Yes I was told by a techie guy that Facebook scammers have algorithms that search for 'widowed' 'retirement' 'redundancy' etc so that they can target vulnerable people and people who may have come into money recently. They are bastards!

Well I had a friend request off Jason Momoa. Not to make you all jealous or anything.....

@MidnightPatrol FB is not full of bots for me. It's full of the same kind of chat among friends that it has always been. Algorithms obviously are the key to this, but what is it that triggers the change? I'd like to avoid it happening to me.

Yes - mine was instagram!

They really are very obviously fake profiles, I wonder what the success rates are. I think if anything I'd be more likely to fall for a slightly better looking than average middle aged man, than these entirely unlikely approaches 😆

They target widows and recently bereaved people.

You do get people falling for it though I was watching a scammers programme on BBC, and some women had spent their life savings sending money to these scammers ,
Even when concerned family and friends have pointed out to them they are bring scammed 🤷

I would really like to know how/why people fall for this. If there was an MN AMA thread I'd be bombarding it with questions!